On February 15th, the Pirates of the Dotombori along with some loyal fans went to the Kansai International Airport (KIX) at noon. We went with no suitcases and no tickets. We went to bring some smiles to complete strangers. We had with us bouquets of flowers, takoyaki stuffed toys, balloons, a 3 mete-long "Welcome To Osaka" sign and general "Welcome" and "We Missed You" signs. At the airport we got first and last names off of the car driver pick-up signs. We then put those names on our signs and welcomed those same people to Japan.
Upon getting to the airport, we broke out markers and pens to decorate the signs. We spread out the 3 meter sign on the floor to color it. We took careful consideration of the ink going through the paper and onto the floor. We thought the Japanese security would find some reason to stop us and we didn't want to get busted leaving marks on their floor. We prepared signs in English and Japanese.
After checking the arrival board full of flights, we chose a flight coming in from London as our target. We then needed to get some names. The first few flights that came in were from China and South Korea. We decided since it was our first time surprising people like this, we choose to stick with western names we could easily read, and if those people asked us later why we welcomed them, we would have a better chance explaining ourselves to them.
We got in position with all of our gifts and signs. Security then sent over their best english speaker who told us to stop using our 3 meter sign. "it is too long" she said. I pleaded with her and we negotiated that we would fold it up while we waited, and when our friend came, we had 10 seconds to open it.